Research in new applications may boost West Texas cotton industry

Sunday

Next, there were herbicide, pesticide and drought-resistant varieties.

Now, a Tech Texas professor said his innovative research projects will take the cotton industry in West Texas to the next level.

Seshadri Ramkumar, an associate professor in The Institute of Environmental and Human Health's department of toxicology, recently received continued funding for 2011. He received $15,000 for two projects from the Texas State Support Program of Cotton Incorporated and $40,000 for two other projects from the Texas Department of Agriculture.

"Cotton is a smart fiber," Ramkumar said. "No other place (than West Texas) has all activities in cotton and the public support."

Of those four research ventures, he said there are two "out of the box" ideas that would make U.S. cotton even more valuable than it already is: cotton fabrics that expel chemicals and a more comfortable cotton variety.

Electrospun nanotechnology cotton fabric

For the past four or five years with TDA funding, Ramkumar and his team of graduate students have been hard at work developing a new value-added cotton product using nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is a science of technology dealing with objects at a molecular level or at the size of a nanometer - one billionth of a meter.

The product is a self-cleaning cotton material coated with nanotechnology that acts as a filter to ensure toxic chemicals do not pass through and come in contact with the wearer.

Through a process called electrospinning, the white nanotechnology fibers stick to the denim with an electric charge.

An electrospinning machine, constructed in the lab, has a syringe containing a mixture of water and polyethylene oxide - the nanotechnology. The machine steadily pushes the liquid mixture through the syringe, the electric charge attaches to that mixture and what comes out of the syringe are many tiny fibers that coat a piece of denim with a thin, film-like layer.

Regular denim only traps about 40 percent of chemicals, whereas the denim with nanotechnology is more effective and traps about 97 percent, said Muralidhar Lalagiri, a doctoral student, who tested the two fabrics in Ramkumar's lab.

Ramkumar said this nanotechnology could be used to create protective clothing or face masks for firefighters, emergency workers, soldiers and even producers spraying pesticide. The final material would have a thin cotton material stitched together to the nanofiber-coated denim to keep the nanotechnology sandwiched in between those fabrics.

"People have been using electrospinning only for synthetic materials so very few people have been thinking about using it for cotton and cotton-based products," he said. "We could either develop cotton nanofiber itself or put it on cotton fabrics and see if it enhances its value."

He plans to use the TDA funding to continue refining the electrospinning process and improve the overall product.

Todd Staples, Texas agriculture commissioner, said research such as the work conducted at Ramkumar's Advanced Materials Lab creates positive economic activity for the state.

"This nanotechnology project is an example of how making smart investments results in jobs for Texas," he said.

Enhancing comfort

A second project, funded by Cotton Incorporated, could lead producers to plant certain varieties of cotton for different niche markets wanting a certain cotton quality.

About three years ago, Ramkumar and a group of researchers identified a biological marker - a complex sugar known as verbascose - which plays a role in cotton fiber development and its comfort.

"That's a game-changer in the cotton industry if we could identify those basic chemistries in cotton which can build comfort," he said.

Like human DNA, cotton has its own unique genetic makeup of sugars that may indicate which sugars are responsible for cotton's comfort.

The measurement of comfort was based on moisture movement or breathability, meaning how fast perspiration evaporates from clothing to keep one's skin dry, said Kater Hake, vice president of agricultural research for Cotton Incorporated and one of the researchers who was involved in the project.

Through a moisture vapor transport rate (MVTR) turntable test, the researchers determined that the lower the concentration of verbascose, the greater the comfort because MVTR measures the rate at which water vapor passes through fabric.

Verbascose was just one of the sugars identified, but continued research could find other sugars that contribute to other desirable traits.

"We'd love to make cotton even more comfortable, and by looking at the moisture management, that's the key comfort characteristic," Hake said. "We'd love to have cottons that have the moisture management of polyester for sports and performance wear."

He said this research is valuable because cotton's biggest competitor - polyester - has been enhancing its products and continues to find new uses.

Also, by isolating certain characteristics - flame resistance, wrinkle resistance, liquid absorbency - and finding what sugars are responsible for those attributes, cotton breeders may be able to develop many kinds of quality-based varieties.

With more varieties, the more value-added products and markets for producers to make profits from.

Ramkumar said West Texas would be impregnable with the most cotton production in the state, a strong collection of cotton researchers and quantity and quality-based varieties.

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Cotton Research Funding

Texas Department of Agriculture

Amount: $40,000

Time period: Sept. 2010 to Aug. 2011

Projects: Self-cleaning cotton material using electronanotechnology and Lightweight material for the military

Cotton Incorporated

Amount: $15,000

Time period: Calendar year 2011

Projects: Enhancement of cotton's comfort and new value-added products for low-micronaire cotton

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